A village in Northern Ghana. Picture: Henry Donati/DFID

Warmth – of the humid tropical sun, of stifling evenings – yes, but of people as well. The richly infectious sound of Ghanaian laughter, humour in the language itself; ‘obruni wawu’ is the name for the piles of second hand clothes donated by well-meaning Westerners for sale in every market – it literally translates as 'dead white man's clothes'. Akpteshie – the fiery sugar cane spirit – the favoured drink at funerals, also known as 'kill me quick' – a name that gives some clues as to its effects. Ghanaian friends and colleagues will strongly disapprove, but I think Francophone West Africa does seem to do the finer things in life rather better – food, music, fashion, beer... But you just need to look across the rest of the region to see how well Ghana does in some of the things that really are more important to people's every day lives: ethnic and religious tolerance, a free press, (in many ways) a booming economy, a vibrant democracy. Ghana doesn't have the wide open landscapes of Namibia, not the stunning landscape and wildlife of East Africa, not even the beaches and mountains of Sierra Leone or the skyscrapers and public transport of Abidjan. What it does have is a sense of pride in a cohesive national identity, in its democratic tradition. Not the scars of apartheid which still run below the surface of South Africa, nor perhaps the growing geographical and religious divides of other West African countries.

Wrought, perhaps, in the heady days of the 1950s and 60s after Ghana became the first African nation to gain its independence in 1957, this democratic sense was then submerged in murky periods of military rule, coup and counter coup through the 70s and 80s, before resurging in the 90s.

The current President, John Mahama wrote his memoirs My First Coup D'Etat about his time in these so-called "lost decades" in Africa: years of authoritarian rule, stagnation in politics, the economy, the arts. But in it, he writes about how for some people like him, these lost years actually became an awakening, a time they began to find their own voices. The book opens with the poignant memory of himself as a 7 year old boy returning home from school to find his home empty, his father had disappeared; a minister in Nkrumah's government, he had been imprisoned following a coup. Mahama writes that this moment was an "awakening of consciousness", a coming to the realisation that this was not how things should be, and a determination to try to change them.

Children at a village in Upper West Region. Picture: Henry Donati/DFID

Kenyan author Ngugi Wa'Thiongo wrote a brilliant Garcia Marquez-esque novel called Wizard of the Crow, which brilliantly satirises the venal African kleptocrat in a fantastical but politically astute way. It shows a wickedly imagined stereotypical image of an African leader in those "lost decades", and one that still might strike a little close to home for some leaders today, but not in Ghana. It is a vision that does not seem to fit in Ghana's political and democratic history, or alongside Mahama's warm, personally felt memoir.

The democratic tradition, the cohesive sense of national identity which had been forged in Ghana's early years re-emerged as democracy returned in the 1990s; it's a democracy that can be loud, discordant and messy, and works through complex overlapping webs of ethnic and political allegiance; but people really do feel like they have a voice. This sense of democratic pride came out most clearly to me in December's Presidential elections. Taxi drivers vigorously debated the different parties' education policies, security guards would listen to the radio rapt to the epic 4 hour long (!) Presidential debates (partly funded by UK aid). As an election observer (read my blog about it here), everywhere I went I saw lines, hundreds long, of people waiting patiently in the baking sun for the chance to cast their vote, old men who had queued out in the open since the night before to have the chance to vote when polls opened at 7am. It was a privilege to witness a small part of Ghana's democratic history.

A new mother in front of her UK aid funded mosquito net.

And even in 18 months, I think about the growth of Accra I've witnessed – every day a new building going up, every night a new bar or restaurant opening, and all the time the traffic gets worse, battered tro tros jammed full of people lumbering along the roads billowing out acrid smoke. I think about the dynamism of some of the young people I met – some born and bred in Ghana, some returning from studying abroad, or children of Ghanaians who are visiting the land of their parents for the very first time. Where 20 years ago the talented people were leaving the country, now many are coming back. And they are young, energetic, creative, entrepreneurial - I think of my friends who've built property businesses from scratch, started think tanks, built mobile applications.

And then I also think about the people this growth isn't really touching at all - villages way out in Upper West region, hours from the nearest tarred road, clinic or electricity connection. Schools where teachers haven’t turned up, where children don’t have books.

Girls in a 'School for Life' class. Picture: Henry Donati/DFID

I think about my visits to UKaid-supported 'School for Life' classes. Seeing kids who had been forced to drop out of primary school, or who never had the chance to join in the first place, getting a second chance at education - something that should be every child's right. Then meeting the parents, hearing them explain their determination that their children should have a better opportunity than they did. I think of the challenges ahead. A booming economy, but one still largely reliant on commodities and riding high on the first wave of reforms that came with democratisation in the 90s. Now as a middle income country Ghana really has to push for the second wave – reforming its public institutions and the way it manages its money, diversifying the economy – otherwise its progress will stagnate. I think about the contrasts. The juxtaposition of what seems to be tradition and modernity – chiefs in traditional dress welcoming you to their village, with one hand pouring the customary bottle of schnapps you've brought them onto the floor as an offering, and fiddling with their smartphones with the other.

Meeting the Asantehene – who went from working in Brent borough council to becoming King of the Ashanti – who leads one of Ghana's biggest ethnic groups and a royal lineage going back 300 years, who inherited a palace and a bling gold jewellery collection that would put most self-respecting rappers to shame. (See here)

The variety of geography – rain-forested coastal Western Region, to verdant green and hilly Volta Region. The regions up north - the dry arid savannah where the harmattan wind sweeps in every January bringing the fine dust from the Sahara which filters out the sun. Here it's a different world from the sprawling metropolis of Accra – mudcracked houses and dirt roads, subsistence farmers growing maize, cassava and rice.

View over Ghana's Volta Region. Picture: Henry Donati/DFID

Visits to companies like Blue Skies - a firm previously supported by UK aid that works 24 hours a day taking fresh mangoes and pineapples from smallholder farmers and turning them into the packets of freshly chopped fruit you see on the shelves of Sainsbury's and Waitrose a few hours later. And then less sustainable business models - towns I've been to in Ghana's central region that are like the wild west, where small scale gold miners raze the ground and turn the rivers milky white with toxic chemicals as they dredge them in search of precious flecks of gold.

The author and his coach in Jamestown

My favourite place in Accra is the area around Jamestown –the oldest part of the city - ramshackle fishing villages, and crumbling colonial buildings. Famous for producing World Champion boxers (see here), I used to go there to learn boxing myself, picking my way across the courtyard littered with shattered tiles, broken bricks, and clapped out cars to find the Attoh Quarshie gym, a small dark room, with a couple of punch bags and a ring, and walls covered in tattered old posters advertising boxing matches. No fan or AC, only narrow windows, just wide enough to let the smells of smoked fish and burning rubbish in off the beach. I helped coach Ghana's national rugby tournament as they played in a West Africa Sevens tournament. The World Cup this was not – the only support they received from the government was the loan of a minibus to take them to Togo (which broke down). The 'athletes' village' was mattresses on the floors of the changing room, and they only had 1 supporter (who doubled as the bus driver). But the guys stood proudly singing the Ghanaian national anthem with tears in their eyes.

Ghana's rugby team sings the national anthem. Picture: Henry Donati/DFID

I think about people we have lost – my friend who died in a traffic accident, relatives of colleagues and friends. Traffic lights that don't work, street lamps that won't light, roundabouts that cars don't go round. Frustration, elation and enervation; plans that don't work and work that doesn't seem to plan. Endless battles with unreliable water, mobile reception, internet and electricity.

Rainy season – torrents of water pouring down, rapidly blocking storm drains, flooding streets. Green tomatoes, green lemons, mounds of dried fish, joints of meat with clouds of flies gathering overhead, chickens – dead, alive and everywhere in between. And when you drive out of town – towers of pineapples tasting sweeter than you could ever imagine, cracked open coconuts cool and refreshing inside. Fishing boats along the coast - giant hollowed out tree trunks painted in bright colours with bible quotations emblazoned on the sides. Fishermen with gnarled hands mending nets. Heat and sweat, lights out and traffic jams. Sitting in the back of a pick-up truck in the tropical sunshine, coated in layers of dirt, bones aching from potholed roads.

Fishing boats at Elmina

Driving through towns and villages on Sunday mornings, people flocking to church in their Sunday best –loud African print skirts, brightly polished shoes. Churches that are Anglican, Methodist, Roman Catholic – and every other denomination imaginable.

Roadside hawkers swooping in as traffic lights in town turn red – selling you fried plaintain, sachets of water and phone credit, but also items less immediately plausible as impulse buys. I've seen vendors selling stepladders, games of cluedo, broken mirrors, power drills and tummy trimmers.

I'm moving to London to work for DFID there. But I’m sure I’ll be back.

A child at a village in Northern Ghana. Picture: Henry Donati/DFID

A bowl of palm fruit. Picture: Henry Donati/DFID

It’s an ingredient you’ve probably never heard of, but it features in thousands of everyday items – from biscuits to beauty products. Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil refined from the reddish fruit of palm trees which originated in West Africa.

Always a staple part of West African cooking, it first became a sought after commodity in the UK in the second half of the 19^th century during the industrial revolution, when it was used as a lubricant on the railways and in other machinery, and later in soap, margarine and candles. As production in countries like Nigeria, Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana fell during the 1970s, Indonesia and Malaysia took the tree native to West Africa and starting producing palm oil on an industrial scale. They created huge plantations and their production soon dwarfed that of all the other West African countries combined; the region where palm oil originated became a net importer of the product.

Producing on this scale in Asia had a major environmental impact, as vast swathes of rainforest were cut down to provide land for plantations and endangered species were being threatened. There were also accusations of human rights abuses made against palm oil producers. There have been calls for boycotts of palm oil products, and demands that multinationals find an alternative ingredient to use in their products.

Women at work sorting palm fruit. Picture: Henry Donati/DFID

The sleepy town of Asuom in Ghana’s eastern region seems a far cry from the globalised market. As I’m shaken from side to side as we drive down a track that’s more pothole than road, it’s no surprise to learn that West Africa is the home of the palm tree, and in Ghana, the eastern region is its heartland. Everywhere I look we are surrounded by the trees, and no forests have been cleared here to plant them - they’ve grown here for hundreds of years. I’m here to visit Serendipalm, a company working with the UK firms Traidcraft and Fulwell Mill, which has just received a UK aid Retail Industry Challenge Fund (FRICH) grant to help scale up and expand its production of palm oil.

Gladys asks me if I'd like to marry her and stay in Asuom. Picture: Henry Donati/DFID

They first opened the palm oil mill around six years ago, when Dr Bronners, an American natural soaps company, was looking for somewhere to buy organic, fair trade palm oil for its products. When they realised they couldn’t find a source they were happy with, they decided they had to make it themselves. I arrived around 9am, just after the latest batch of palm fruit had been delivered. The women working at the mill carry large bowls of the brownish-red palm fruit and deposit them on the floor of the mill.  These are divided up and distributed between the groups of local women working there, who carefully peel the fruit off the stalk by hand, and check the quality. In high season 200 women are at work – perched on stools, they sit in circles, laughing, joking and singing while they pick away the palm fruit stalks. I talked to Gladys, who has been working at the mill since it opened – she tells me it’s now the biggest employer in the area. When the women finish their shifts, many will stay and sit around – keeping their friends and colleagues company.

Women at work sorting the palm fruits. Picture: Henry Donati/DFID

The mill purchases its palm fruits from some 300 smallholder farmers.  Each has about two hectares of palm trees, with each palm tree producing around three to five bunches of fruit every two weeks during the high season. The mill has helped the farmers to achieve organic status – not many were using pesticides in the first place, but being organic is as much about helping to increase yields – the mill provides organic ‘sludge’ left over from the palm oil producing process to the farmers so that they can use it to fertilise the trees. Farmers are offered training and interest free loans (in the form of hybrid seedlings), and the mill also assists with other local community projects.

Production: clarifying the palm oil. Picture: Henry Donati/DFID

Once the fruit has been separated from its stalks, it is steamed in big vats to soften the flesh, then put through a digester, pressing out the oily liquid, and filtering out the ‘sludge’ which is used as fertiliser. The liquid left over is then put through a clarification process, heated like in distillation, and the oil layer rises above the water and overflows through a pipe into a second tank. This is then stored, before being shipped to Europe where it is further refined, and eventually used in the manufacturing of all kinds of different products.

DFID’s support through the FRICH grant is being used to help expand the mill. This includes building another processing facility which should allow it to increase annual production around seven-fold, helping to add value by doing more refining on site, and exploring opportunities to market secondary products like cocoa. Of course small projects like this are never going to be able to rival the size or scale of the plantations in Asia. But they should be able to help create a demand for palm oil that is created in a sustainable way and that benefits the community and the environment. It’s good to see production of palm oil finally coming back home to West Africa.

A rather less positive first on social media came last month when the Israeli Defence Force made the first declaration of war by a sovereign state on Twitter when it started bombing Gaza, but in their own way, both announcements seem very symbolic step changes in how social media can change the way we interact and communicate.

Ghana's election result announced on facebook

I’ve blogged about some of the technology UK aid was supporting in this election before (here), and the announcement of the results capped what had already been dubbed the 'social media election' in Ghana. One of the most exciting and innovative things which UK aid did around the election which I haven't written about before, was to fund a Social Media Tracking Centre. Software first developed and used in the 2011 Nigeria election allows the hundreds of election related social media posts happening every minute to be tracked. UK aid funded the people behind Nigeria’s social media tracking - Enough is Enough Nigeria and the Georgia Institute of Technology in the USA– to adapt the programme for the Ghanaian elections. Using the software, we could categorise social media posts, analyse trends, work out exactly what people were talking about on the web and when, and get up-to-the-second information on emerging incidents.

Social Media Tracking Trends

So whilst most of my colleagues were spending election day trawling round polling stations, clipboard and pencil in hand, doing a rather more traditional form of election monitoring, I spent much of the day monitoring online. Penplusbytes (the organisation behind Ghana Decides and Ghana Votes) was the organising force behind the Social Media Tracking Centre. Manning the centre were around 30 tech savvy volunteers from the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology in Accra, a brilliant foundation which provides mentoring and training for aspiring young African software entrepreneurs.Working in shifts non-stop for 48 hours, the Centre reviewed more than 250,000 Ghana election-related social media posts. Using key election phrases, (e.g. ‘John Mahama’, ‘ballot boxes’, ‘electoral fraud’) the ‘Aggie’ software automatically trawled twitter, facebook and google+ for all related posts. The team of students then set out categorising them – for example, some were irrelevant, others come under the category 'election irregularity', others 'results'. Where potentially serious occurrences were reported in posts, these could be escalated into 'incidents' - 350 incident reports were generated over the 48 period. Once incidents were recorded, other members of the team would then try to verify them - tweeting back to the person who sent the message, or trying to confirm the incident through other means. The team then had representatives stationed in the electoral commission and the police headquarters who they would report a verified incident to.

So I watched the elections unfold nationwide in real time on a computer screen. There were reports of late opening of polling stations, and long queues in the sun. There were moments of humour - "Chinese man spotted voting (unverified)", and moments of humanity - pictures tweeted of old men and pregnant women being helped to the ballot boxes to cast their vote. Some tweets seemed intended to offend, or incite violence or discrimination, and the team quickly tracked these. Graphs could measure the occurrence of certain key words or phrases over time - around 3pm on Friday, for example, we saw the number of posts concerning faulty equipment spike, as technological problems with biometric registration machines started to occur at some polling stations throughout the country.

In a few weeks time we will get a detailed report on what else we can find out about the election from the social media tracking - we should get a picture of the balance of positive/negative commentary from people, and an idea of the geographical spread of the contributions. Yes, of course there are inherent limitations to using social media to track elections - for instance, only around 10-15% of Ghanaians have access to the internet. It's not going to replace the traditional on-the-ground monitoring of elections, and nor is it intended to - it's complementary. In fact, we don't yet really know what else we can learn from the tracking, but its potential is hugely exciting in a lot of ways (and not just in relation to elections).

For far too many companies and organisations who do use social media, it is seen simply as an alternative kind of promotional channel. Its application in things like election monitoring shows its real power, however – as a way of listening to people. You don't need to organise costly focus groups, you don't have to compile complex surveys; you can find out, unmediated and in real time, exactly what thousands of people are saying. And this is where the application of social media tracking could go way beyond elections.

In our health and education programmes in Ghana, for example, we are constantly trying to work out better ways of doing 'beneficiary monitoring'; that is, working out what the people we are trying to help actually think. The ease (and the low cost) of having one simple programme in one central location for tracking what thousands of people from all over the country are saying, would be remarkable. And the possibilities of social media for mobilising people's support on issues, for tracking governments' progress against their promises, is vast. We may not be there yet, but social media surely has to be the future on this.

Categorising social media posts

I just read a really good post on Ghana Decides (another organisation supported by UK aid) on what this election means for Ghana. It takes a sceptical look at all the praise being heaped on Ghana by the international media for holding another peaceful election. In it the author agrees that, yes, given Ghana's past and the chequered history of many of its neighbours, a peaceful outcome shouldn't be taken for granted (although the picture of democracy in Africa is far more positive than international media caricatures might suggest). However, the danger of all this praise is that it obscures other important issues Ghana's leaders should now be focusing on, and absolves them of the responsibilities they should be taking on when an election has been completed.Political leaders shouldn't only be held accountable every four years. Citizens shouldn't have to wait until the next time they go to the ballot box to be listened to. The blog cogently argues the point that "the elected leadership needs to be held accountable for more than holding peaceful elections. That’s what they’re supposed to do." Beyond this, leaders should continuously be tasked with raising people's standards of living and raising their own standard of governance; "peace and democracy are the starting point, but we cannot end there." Twitter and facebook could have a huge part to play in holding leaders to account for these obligations.

Social media played an important role in the elections here, but I believe it has a greater part to play in extending accountability beyond ballot boxes in Ghana and around the world, and that's even more exciting.

The Ghana Social Media Tracking team

Election day: Women wait patiently in the queue to vote. Picture: Henry Donati/DFID

Throughout the day, it was the same type of humbling experiences – at the next polling station, the middle age woman at the front of the queue had been sitting there since 8pm the previous evening. The sun was now getting hotter, and the ballot boxes still hadn’t arrived, but the queue waited patiently. Eventually when the ballot materials did arrive the presiding office took control of the situation – he waved the empty ballot box vigorously above his head to show there was nothing inside it. Warming to his routine he carried on, announcing “I now declare this polling station officially…open!” rousing a huge cheer from the queue.

Left: Checking fingerprints. Right: A colleague casts her vote. Picture: Henry Donati/DFID

The voting materials were just arriving at the next polling station I visited. The police swept into the courtyard in their pick-up truck, depositing three boxes of materials and speeding on to the next station. The presiding officer of the polling station carefully checked the serial numbers of the booklets of ballot papers against his list, then meticulously fastened 9 security seals on each of the empty ballot boxes. The party agents present checked for any irregularities, carefully noted all the serial numbers and scrutinised the biometric verification machine. UK aid helped train 276,000 party polling agents for election day duties. When the agents were satisfied, it was time to start voting. First – name on the voter registration card checked against the list by one Electoral Commission official, next step scanning the barcode on the card and checking the photo matched the holder, then verifying fingerprints on the biometric machine. The next Electoral Commission official then stamps the back of the presidential ballot paper – voter dips their left little finger in indelible ink to show they’ve voted. Behind a cardboard voting booth the voter places a thumb print next to their chosen candidate – ballot paper put in the box, then the same again for the Parliamentary election.

Ballot papers. Picture: Henry Donati/DFID

Everywhere I went throughout the day, there was a profound sense of value and importance imbued in the process. The sun got hotter and the queues got longer. Some of the biometric machines broke down, and replacements had to be brought in. Anyone could have been forgiven for losing their patience, but everywhere I went, people remained calm and patient, but determined to have their say. Ghanaians, not normally renowned for queuing, developed a very stoic orderliness for one day only. The whole process felt communal – it felt like everyone was a part of it (as turnout figures of more than 80% seemed later to evidence) regardless of political orientation, everyone felt it was their duty to have their say. I bumped into friends, colleagues, my boxing coach, my local barman – everyone had come out, and was patiently waiting in the queue for their chance to be heard.

Counting the votes late into the night. Picture: Henry Donati/DFID

The voting, and the queues, carried on late into the afternoon and on into the evening. Technical problems meant that some polling stations had to resume on Saturday morning, but the majority finished on Friday evening. For those stations which did finish the same day, having begun in the early hours of the morning, many voters were back at 7pm or 8pm in the evening for the count. The Security Services set a perimeter a few metres around the polling table, and everyone eagerly pressed against the tape, joining in with the returning officer as they counted the ballot papers for each candidate: “one, two, three”. The minor parties got an ironic cheer as they clocked up only single figure totals, the two major parties elicited a sigh of relief when it got to the end  of counting them out - “four hundred and seventy six, four hundred and seventy seven...phew”. The idea of democracy – having a vote, having a voice, never felt quite so palpable.

The results were close. The current President John Dramani Mahama was narrowly re-elected. The Foreign Office Minister for Africa, Mark Simmonds, congratulated Ghana on the elections that were "widely recognised to be free, fair and transparent."

Look out for another post very shortly on some of the work UK aid was supporting for fair elections (and you can find out more in my past blog posts about Ghana Decides).

After violence broke out following the 2007 Kenyan election, a group of Kenyan bloggers and activists rapidly put together a website, Ushahidi (meaning testimony in Swahili), which would allow Kenyans to submit reports on violent incidents breaking out across the country. Collating information that was submitted on mobile phones and through the internet, crowdsourcing and mapping it out across the country. Ushahidi could create a more up-to-date and accurate picture of what was happening on the ground than the media or security services could manage.

Since then the technology has been used across the world from elections in Nigeria to the tsunami in Japan, and through STAR Ghana UK aid is supporting Ghana Votes a website which will use the Ushahidi platform to monitor Ghana’s election in December.

In a country of 25 million people but only 250,000 telephone lines and 50,000 fixed broadband subscribers (World Bank 2010), mobile phones are the primary means of communication for many, and particularly for young, politically engaged Ghanaians, social media is a crucial part of that. In the run up to the elections, and on the day itself, trained journalists and representatives from civil society will report back to Ghana Votes from across the country on everything from the length of queues at polling stations to alleged incidents of hate speech. Members of the public can also text in for free (or send in audio or video), and a team of volunteers will go through all the reports, assessing their veracity, comparing their reports with those from journalists and the security services, and plotting the incidents across a map of Ghana.

Millions of Ghanaians will be able to track online in real time exactly what is happening across the country. If there are allegations of vote rigging or ballot box stuffing, Ghana Votes will mean people are aware of them, and can press for action. As well as being used to track any possible problems with the election in Ghana, the information provided can also be used by journalists in writing stories, by civil society for advocacy, and after the election academics and researchers will access it.

Ghana Votes is not a political project, but by giving people information to make decisions for themselves, it underlines the credibility and transparency of the election process for Ghanaians. Ultimately, the power of technology like Ghana Votes is that it democratizes information. Citizens can be involved in monitoring elections themselves, and at a glance can find out exactly what is happening where. Perception is crucial - the moment a democratic election is not perceived to be fair is the moment it fails, and so the transparency that platforms like Ushahidi can provide is crucial.

Ghana Decides is another online project supported by DFID through STAR Ghana which uses social media as a tool for promoting democracy and accountability. It launched a social media campaign called “#Iregistered” earlier this year encouraging Ghanaians to take part in the biometric voter registration exercise and asking them to report back on their experiences. Its website hosts a series of election related blogs and it will launch a further campaign encouraging people to vote on election day itself.

Social media and technology are not, of course, an unmitigated source for good in promoting democracy and open societies. As much as media reports point towards anecdotal evidence from the Arab spring of the democraticising power of Facebook and Twitter, at the same time terrorist groups like Al Shabab and Boko Haram were using them to recruit new members – as well as to empower and inform, these channels can be used to radicalise, exclude and enrage.

Whilst social media might be able to direct public attention towards crucial political events one minute, it can rapidly change direction the next. For example, although #Egypt might have edged out #JustinBeiber,  blog and newspaper coverage of the Iranian ‘Green Revolution’ dropped dramatically after the death of Michael Jackson. Likewise, whilst social media campaigns like Kony 2012 can succeed in drawing millions of people’s attentions towards issues, they can risk manipulating the facts, simplifying complex issues, and their ‘awareness raising’ can fail to actually move people from talk to action.

There are of course, therefore, limits to how far projects like Ghana Votes and Ghana Decides can reach. Only something like 10-15% of Ghanaians use the internet, of the 18 phone subscriptions (World Bank 2010) only around a third are actually used for text messaging anyway (Afrobarometer Ghana 2012). The main way most Ghanaians gain information is still by radio, so a platform like Ghana Votes which is online, and in English rather than a local language, is not going to be accessible to large numbers of the population. However, the project is looking to address some of these issues by instituting a telephone number people can call for free to report incidents, for example, and providing this in a number of different local languages.

The statement at once demonstrates the power people invest in elections here in Ghana, in a way those of us from the UK would never normally experience,  but also the heightened tensions that results from so much being at stake. Elections in Ghana are slated for 7^th December this year, and as the date approaches, you can feel passions palpably increasing. I first experienced this first-hand a couple of months back when I walked around the corner in Accra straight into a cloud of tear gas being fired to disperse protesters from outside the Police Headquarters; eyes watering, coughing and spluttering I made a hasty retreat.

Back in 2008, the election was ultimately decided by only 40,000 votes; the first round of voting was too close to declare an outright winner, and as the run-off approached, the prospect of serious outbreaks of violence seemed very possible. The film dramatically charts the ebb and flow of the tension, and there’s one moment in the strong room of the Electoral Commission (where the votes are collated) where allegations of vote rigging start flying between party agents.

Ultimately the election resulted in a peaceful and democratic handover of power, and as this comment demonstrates, there is a very real and pervading sense of Ghanaian democratic pride (within the film and in Ghana more generally). Ghanaians are rightly proud to have had five successive free and fair elections and two transfers of power, and are confident the upcoming election will further embed this tradition.

Ghana’s  electoral history does indeed have a lot to offer other countries across the continent. The director of ‘An African Election’ is trying to build on this democratic tradition with a project called A Political Safari, where he is travelling across Ghana (and later several other countries in Africa) with a mobile cinema screening the film, sharing Ghana’s democratic experience and trying to reach out to people to become part of the political process.

As part of UK aid support for the election this year, the Ghana Electoral Commission will train 276,000 party polling agents for election day duties; I spoke at one of the workshops for the agents and was impressed by the detailed discussions taking place about the rights and obligations of political parties under Ghana’s constitution. Last month, former Head of the UK Civil Service Lord Gus O’Donnell, led a series of discussions with politicians and the civil service in Ghana around the importance of transition after elections in the democratic process – again a very positive sign.

Biometric voter registration was used for the first time in Ghana this year, and UK aid provided support to monitor the process. Of course, it’s so often not in the voting but in the counting where elections fail to be democratic –so UK aid has supported all of Ghana’s key institutions – the Judiciary, the Electoral Commission, the police force, to try to ensure from registration to resolution, there is the best possible chance of another free, fair and peaceful election.

There’s also some more innovative work being done to support the Ghanaian elections. Ushahidi is a website that was started in Kenya during the violence of the 2007 election (watch a TED talk about it here.) Using reports Kenyans submitted on their mobiles or the internet, it crowdsourced the information to create a far more accurate and up-to-date picture of what was actually happening in the country than the Kenyan media did. The technology has been used everywhere from Haiti to the Middle East since, and UK aid is supporting its use here in Ghana - watch out for another post on this shortly..

As well as managing UK aid support for the election in the coming months, on election day itself several DFID and other British High Commission staff will be volunteering across all 10 regions across Ghana to act as election observers–assessing the voting process and feeding back eyewitness reports from the ground -  expect more on this and other areas of our election programme in Ghana in the coming weeks.

My short view is that there's still some way to go. However, it's important not to lose sight of the remarkable progress Ghana has made in recent years; a reduction from 52% of people living below the poverty line in 1991 to 29% in 2006 (the most recent year for which the numbers are available). That means there are millions of people whose lives are significantly better than their parents. But it also means there are still millions who live on less than $1.25 a day.

What might need to happen between now and 2020 for Ghana not to need aid? Whilst the economy continues to grow rapidly (14.4% in 2011), it's crucial that human development indicators (performance in health, education and so on) keep pace with the impressive economic statistics. Ghana's success at lifting people out of poverty has also primarily been the success of the south of the country. A huge 69% of the population in the three northern regions of Ghana still live in poverty (see some of my previous blogs on our programmes in the north here and here.)

Northern Ghana - a long way to go: children in a village in upper east Region

It’s difficult, then, to imagine a Ghana free from aid without reducing the inequality between the north and the south. Ultimately, people need to feel on an individual level that they are benefitting from a country's economic growth, otherwise they have no interest in trying to sustain it; growing inequality would surely create discontent further down the line.

Whilst Ghana has made great progress in, for example, increasing the number of children in primary school, in terms of education outcomes (what children actually learn) there's still some way to go. (Watch a brilliant TED talk from a Ghanaian on the importance of education here.)

Improving Education: Children at a Primary School in Pram Pram, near Accra

Translating the economic growth into large numbers of jobs for people will be crucial. The size of the formal sector – the number of medium size businesses, the number of people in jobs where they actually get paid, rather than, for example, subsistence farming – will need to increase rapidly, and Ghana will continue to need to look beyond natural resources to other means of creating income.

If Ghana is to stop needing aid, I also think continuing to reform the public sector will be critical. Well-functioning state institutions are crucial for any country seeking to improve the lives of its citizens. Whether through technical assistance, institutional strengthening, changing incentives - the real challenge is how to achieve this reform. I think mobilising communities and encouraging citizens to demand accountability from their government will also be crucial as Ghana looked to a future without aid. 

There are no easy answers, but the fact that we’re starting to think about the questions – what does Ghana need for a future without aid – is surely a positive thing.

Marching into the future: a band on the beach in Busua, western Region

Family Planning: mothers and babies waiting for their turn with the nurses

When Sanziana, James's wife, has finished with the nurses, I talk to them together outside. He was here for the first time, he explained, because he had heard about pregnancy planning, and "I came along because I am interested". Sanziana holds her son, Justice, in her arms, and tells me she has three other children at home; she had come to get family planning because, simply, "five children is too many".

"five children is too many": James, Sanziana and Justice

Every month, MSI outreach teams of one doctor and three or four nurses come to communities like Twifu Hemang, to offer women a whole range of family planning options that would not be available to them otherwise. Government clinics and hospitals simply don't have the stocks of commodities or the capacity to reach these rural communities, or if they do, the women can't afford to pay for them. The outreach clinic works through government health centre facilities, and junior government nurses and doctors come and help at the clinics to gain experience. 

The first thing that struck me when I arrived was just the overwhelming demand  – a trickle of mothers and babies were waiting outside the clinic, but  inside, the rooms were full to bursting in a state of good-natured organised chaos. When the women first arrive at the clinic, they are shepherded into a room for group counselling – one of the Marie Stopes nurses carefully explains what all the different options are, and the benefits and side-effects of each. Mothers listen intently, while babies doze on their breasts. The women then wait for individual counselling with community health nurses. Here the women take pregnancy tests and have their blood pressure and other vital signs checked, and then make the decision on which method they're choosing. 

Group Counselling: women learn about the different methods available

I speak to Janet outside, who already has two children – Prince who is nine months, and Solomon, 4. She became aware of the clinic from announcements on local community radio. "I want my children to grow up happy", she says, and "if the children are too many you can't take care of them." It seems to me that for these women, who've travelled miles and wait several hours to see the nurses, family planning isn't about not having children, it's about having some control over their lives, about having the freedom to be able to make positive choices about their children's future. If the clinic wasn't here, Janet continues, "I might attempt herbal medicine" to try and stop herself having more children.

Individual counselling: women wait for their check ups with the nurses

Back inside the clinic, once the women have decided which method they are choosing, they file off to separate rooms to get injectables and pills. In one of the rooms, a heroic pair of MSI nurses administer implants to patients, and don't have time to sit down or eat for the whole day. The outreach co-ordinator Simeon explains to me, "you see how many women are here, they've come from miles away so we can't let them down. We have to make sure they all get helped today."   

I talk to Felicia who has come here because she already has two children, and wants to wait until she has another one as "there is no money to take care of the children". Being able to make this decision is such a fundamental right for women in the UK that we take it for granted. In Ghana and around the world, other women should be able to have that choice too.

Today, 11 July, the UK Government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with other partners, is hosting the London Summit on Family Planning to provide an additional 120 million women in the world's poorest countries with lifesaving contraceptives, information, and services by 2020. The Summit is calling for international political commitment and resources to transform the lives of millions of women and girls - women like Sanziana, Janet and Felicia, to help lift families, communities, and nations out of poverty.

Two children who will benefit from new mosquito nets

When I first met David last year, I was tracking the distribution of some of the 2.35 million mosquito nets DFID had provided in Ghana's Western and Central region (read my blog about it here and watch a video about the campaign here).

Most of Ghana's cocoa, and other resources like gold and timber, come from these two regions in Ghana, and their coastal location and large forested areas mean malaria is an ever-present problem.

As David explains as he takes me around Upper East, the story here is very different. For several months a year, the dry desert wind (known as the Harmattan) blows down from the Sahara into Northern Ghana and mosquitoes are therefore not as prevalent. But when the rains come, malaria returns, and these inaccessible communities in the poorest regions of Ghana are those that are worst affected.

An extended family in Namologo outside their house where their new nets have just been hung up

David takes me to a village called Namologo and I speak to Francis, one of the volunteers from the village who has been helping distribute the nets there. He explains what happens when he gets malaria: "I have difficulty breathing, my body is weak and cold, I can't eat".

Awuni Margaret has been the Community Health Nurse for Namologo and nine other villages for the last ten years. She's run outreach programmes and immunisation programmes, and is now supervising the mosquito net distribution. She continues Frances' story: "Malaria is the main problem, ahead of all the other cases". Even for those who get it in mild form and can try to go to work or school, "their productivity is low... and students are not able to catch up with their friends."

Francis' clinic has run out of rapid diagnostic tests for malaria, and severe cases have to be referred to the regional hospital, several hours' travel away. For those who don't have health insurance, or can't afford to pay the medical bills, this is a journey that might not even happen.

Eva and her child Sapana in front of her new net

Prevention then, is better than cure, and David explains to me how UNICEF and the Ghana Health Service have been working to distribute the 700,000 nets DFID provided for Upper East region, and make sure people use them.

The key to the campaign's success, he explains, will be social mobilisation. Not just telling people that they will be receiving nets, but actually getting volunteers to put them up inside people's houses and make sure recipients know how to use them, and why they are important.

Radio, word of mouth, even getting volunteers to stand on the rooftop of the tallest house in the village and shout - every method has been used to try and get the message across.

David's area of expertise is logistics and he relishes the challenges of working out how to get mosquito nets to Ghana's most inaccessible regions. He draws up microplans for reaching the farthest flung communities, and tells me about how he and his team "had to climb over rocky mountains to get to remote villages where vehicles can't go."

One mosquito net recipient peers out of the window in front of his new net

There's no doubt that these are the communities most in need of this protection from malaria. Most of those I spoke to had never had a mosquito net before, or if they had it was several years old or broken.

Eva is another beneficiary in the village, who received a net for the first time, and proudly poses in front of it for a photograph, holding her baby, Sapana. It's thanks to the work of people like David, Frances and Awuni Margaret that the net is now up inside her home. Hopefully, Eva and Sapana can sleep safely, protected from malaria beneath it.

Karim grasped the chalk firmly in her hand and carefully traced out the letters of a word on the blackboard. She is the first female in her family ever to be able to do this – the first to stay in school, the first to learn how to read and write.

A goat strayed underneath the tree where Karim and her classmates sat, and nibbled idly at a stool. Sitting outside with the distractions of the village going past might not be the ideal environment, but it's better than not going to school at all.

Lessons outdoors: Karim and her class learn wherever they can

Originally, like her elder sisters, Karim had been forced to leave primary school to help her mother at home. In the less-developed north of Ghana this is not uncommon.

Karim's second chance at learning comes from 'School for Life' - a programme DFID Ghana supports which targets children aged 8-14 in rural communities in northern Ghana who have dropped out of primary school. It works with these communities to find a local facilitator to teach, and finds a time for classes that allows the children to help out at home, as well as go to school.

Outside; under a tree; in an unoccupied school classroom – classes take places wherever they can. Children get taught intensively in their native tongue for nine months, and can then re-join primary school. The programme has helped thousands of children since it started 17 years ago.

A School for Life teacher at work

Each 'School for Life' class is overseen by a local committee, normally consisting of three women and two men from the village.

They decide the format of the classes, nominate a teacher from within their community, and visit a family if their child stops coming to class.

A School for Life programme manager translated for me as Baba, the Vice-Chairman of Karim's school committee, explained:

Second chance at school: a School for Life pupil practises their writing

"Even the blind and the dumb know that education is important. This place from here to Tamale (northern Ghana’s main city) was all farms. New buildings have choked most of the land – people won't even get land to farm… If you don't go to school, the land you used to farm, or your father's, or your grandfather's is no longer yours. You can't count the importance of education."

For many, the nature of life in northern Ghana is changing. Baba and most of his committee had not gone to school, but they realise what a difference that made, and what these changes might mean. He continued, "Our age group, who went school, they still look young compared to us because of the nature of our work."

Hopefully for children like Karim, it won't be the same.